Why?

<SNIP>
The dwarfers were near the entrance to the control room after what felt like a great deal of running, dodging and sneaking. Jade hung back, making sure that the others were safely into the small hut at the top of the stairs. Only when after everyone else had gone, and Jaxx was left did they realize the problem. The suddenly seeming very large gap to the stairs was now feeling a great deal bigger.
"Yo, Doc I don't think I can do stairs like." Jaxx wheezed.
"Well you can't stay here. You'll get blown apart." Jade hissed. As if to punctuate the matter, a hail of heavy plasma fire flew overhead and incinerated the nearby packing crates.
"Like. But. I can't go up stairs. I'm just a Scutter man." Jaxx said simply. "I'll hold here, provide cover fire so that Eve is most righteously safe in the glass box."
"Stupid idea." Jade breathed, hefting the Scutter by the claw and dragging it towards the stairs as best she could. Now a normal Scutter would have been no problem to carry properly, but with the arms, scanners, chains and all the extra modifications made to him Jaxx was too heavy to do anything but manhandle up the stairs.
A burst of gunfire sang out through the core, slicing the handle of Jade's medical bag and sending it skittering to the floor below and causing Jade to wince. She managed to get Jaxx to the top and hurtled foolishly down again to get the bag.
<SNIP>

As Jade hauled Jaxx up the stairs he remembered the last few times the Doc saved his life, despite his resistance. She healed him when he was injured with a dirty spike through his arm even though Jay was dying. Then after being tortured she supplied Evelina with a medpak to heal him when he was bleeding to death. And now here she was again risking her life to haul his skutter butt up the stairs while being shot at. Jaxx was embarrassed to ask for help from others since made him feel weak and helpless. How was he ever going to get stronger if he had to depend on the crew for help? It bothered him to know he couldn’t protect anyone and had to be saved by a small female human. Granted the Doc was a nice person even if she had a crush on Alex, who seemed to like hurting himself. Maybe the Doc had a thing for broken guys. Jaxx wondered if that meant he was really broken? If he was broken then did that mean Evelina only like him because he was broken? Jaxx felt overwhelmed by to many bad thoughts in his head as he tried to make sense of it all.

<SNIP>
As she began to gather the spilled contents together and into the bag another hail of gunfire erupted, the super heated plasma obliterating the contents that had spilled and remained uncollected. Jade made it to the control room, breathing heavily, clutching her abdomen out of breath.

<SNIP>

Jaxx watched helplessly as the Doc ran to gather her medical supplied under heavy fire. Her actions shamed him beyond belief as could only watch her struggle against the odds just for a hand full of medical supplies. After Jade salvaged what she could, Jaxx rolled inside the control room and sat quietly as he watched Jade check her supplies.

<SNIP>
"That was a stupid thing to go back for." Jacky pointed out.
"I thought we might need it yet." Jade said, wincing.
"Well as long as we have the nanites. It's ok, we can get Jaxx back into his real body" Eve said, a smile on her face as she clung feverishly to the metal body.
"Yeah... Only managed to get one back." Jade said "We need to hurry up... It's getting bad out there. Where's the time drive Jamie?" Jade asked, addressing the engineer who was closest to what looked like a control pad.
"You ok?" He asked, a quizzical look on his face, as he looked over the pale doctor.
"Yeah. Fine." Jade said. "Can we hurry up?"
<SNIP>

Jaxx felt more ashamed as Evelina showed her concern for him over the Doc. The others couldn’t see it but the Doc was hurt and Jaxx believed it was his fault. If only he had his old body back he could climb up staris without help. The Doc may have been able to fool the others but his scanners could clearly see her vitals looked bad. Why was she doing this? Why was she protecting him? Even though she was a doctor she really had no reason to save a skutter. Only tech people worked on skutters, not doctors. Did she really feel so sorry for him that she would treat him like a child? Jaxx wondered was he a child? True he was not to old and his brain was flushed clean, but did that make him a kid like little Max? Jaxx wish he had time to talk to Evelina in private, but it would have to wait till they got home. Jaxx was still afraid he would be stuck in the skutter body for the rest of his life and he would never again be able to touch Evelina again. Feeling of anger and fear flooded his mind as he thought pondered several “What If?” situations.

<SNIP>
She drifted to the back of the group as they all poured over the displays looking for the Time Drive. When no one was looking, she lifted her hand away from her midsection. A growing pool of blood oozed out through her fingers. Looking through the medical bag revealed that most of the useful things had been lost to the plasma fire. No anti-coagulant, no pain killers, no clotting agent, no antiseptic.
Well this is going to put a crimp in my day. She thought as the pain began to grow in intensity.
She clamped her hand back over the hole, a wad of bandage clasped over it to try and stem the flow.
Now was not a good time for this. I need to keep everyone together. I need to be strong so that we can get out of here. She steeled herself against the injury and hoped that no one would notice. The last thing they needed now was any more delays.
<SNIP>

At this point Jaxx just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He could clearly see she was hiding her pain. Was she to proud to tell the others or was she scared they would leave her behind if they knew she was hurt? Jaxx was afraid to be left behind too, but he would never admit that to the others or they might really leave him behind. Sometimes it felt like the others only kept him around to fight bad people, at a time like this what was he going to do? It was bad enough he was dumb but now he was useless too. If it weren’t for Evelina, Jaxx would have left a long time ago. He was torn by mixed emotions that he didn’t truly understand. To make matters worse he couldn’t express his feelings while stuck in the body of a skutter. For the first time since he could first remember Jaxx was lost. He didn’t know what to do anymore.

<SNIP>
The group were in the control room, all searching over the database in front of them, looking for any trace of their time drive.
"Can't you search for temporal signatures? the same way they tracked us?" Jacky asked, but Jamie was at the controls.
"It won't work. This entire ship is a temporal black hole. It either gives off too much temporal signature itself, or it's shielded so no scans pick anything up here."
"What's that?" Eve asked, pointing to something showing up like a pulsing orb on the scanner screen.
"Not sure, but I think it's a super weapon of some kind. Probably safe where it is." Jamie replied.
<SNIP>

Jaxx watched helplessly as the other crew members used their smart brains to find the time thing to take them home. As Jaxx watched them work he realized he had no clue what they were doing. The words they were using and the machines they were using felt like an alien language to him. Evelina tried to cheer Jaxx up with promises of getting his body back as she nuzzled him, but somehow it didn’t feel right. He wanted to go home with the others and get his old body back to be with Evelina but he couldn’t shake the emptiness he was feeling in his core. Jaxx had never experienced despair before so the idea was completely alien to him. Jaxx looked at his holowhips as he wondered if this was all he was. Was he just a monster made for violence? Even when he had a chance to start a new life after loosing his past he still chose the path of violence. Did he choose it to protect the others? Did he do it to protect Evelina? Or did he do it because deep down inside he wanted to do it? Jaxx had no answers for his internal questions as he wallowed in doubt. Jaxx was so self involved he completely forgot what was going on around him.

TAG

< Prev : Giant Death Robot Next > : Shove it!